1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to an automated claims transaction system and method. More particularly, the invention is directed to an automated system and method of reporting and processing claims of damage to company property, where the company operates a network.
2. Background of the Invention
Current systems and procedures used to report damage to company property are generally manual, labor-intensive and inefficient.
FIG. 1 is a schematic drawing of a Prior Art system for reporting damage to company property. When a customer 100 is experiencing problems, for example, with his or her telephone service, customer 100 would inform the company's customer service division 102. Customer service division 102 would then generate a report and the report would be sent to dispatch division 104.
A “division” is a portion of a company that performs a particular function or act. A division can be fully automated, meaning that an automated division would include only machines and/or computers. On the other hand, a division can include only human employees. A division can also include both human employees and machines and/or computers. This definition of “division” is used throughout the specification and claims, unless otherwise noted.
After reviewing the report, the dispatcher will dispatch a technician 106 to the scene. After the technician 106 has arrived at the scene, and conducted appropriate diagnostic tests, isolated the problem 108 (for example a damaged cable), and repaired the problem, technician 106 will complete a company property damage form 110.
After returning back to the company, technician 106 turns in the company property damage form 110 to his or her supervisor 112. The supervisor 112 reviews the company property damage form 110 to ensure that the form has been properly completed. Once supervisor 112 has approved the form, supervisor 112 then sends company property damage form 110 via company mail 114 to billing division 116. If the company property damage form 110 is improperly completed, then billing division 116 returns form 110 back to supervisor 112 via company mail 114. This process continues until form 110 is properly completed. The longer it takes to for billing division 116 to get the necessary information, the more likely it becomes that the information becomes unavailable or more difficult to obtain. Once the company property damage form 110 is properly completed, billing division 116 then manually re-enters all of the information contained in the company property damage form 110 into a billing system 116 and finally generates a rendered bill 118. This bill 118 is subsequently mailed to the party responsible for the damage.
The Prior Art system suffers from a number of shortcomings and disadvantages. The use of a paper damage form, and the subsequent routing of the form, is very slow and time-consuming. It is often difficult, if not impossible, to produce and render a bill within, for example, 30 days of when the technician has made the repair. Further, in the Prior Art system, there is no communication from the technician to the dispatch system. The dispatch division and the repair and billing divisions are separated and there is no communication between the two divisions. As demonstrated later in connection with the disclosure of the invention, this failure to communicate often causes an ineffective and inefficient allocation of technician resources.
FIG. 2 is a schematic representation of a telecommunications network and includes a central office 202. A trunk line 204 extends from the central office 202 to a crossbox 206. While the described example of a network is a telecommunications network, the principles of this invention can be applied to any network including a cellular network, a fiber-optic network, a cable network, an electrical network, a network that includes water and sanitation or any other network where there is a distribution or collection of matter, energy or signals. Three branch lines emanate from crossbox 206. The first branch line 208 extends from crossbox 206 to region A 210. Typically, region A would be a neighborhood or housing development. Region A can include, for example, houses 212, 214 and 216. The second branch line 218 extends from crossbox 206 to customer 220. Customer 220 may be a large customer or a company that requires many telephone lines. The third branch line 222 extends from crossbox 206 to Region B 224. Region B again could be a neighborhood or a housing development or an apartment building.
In the context of a telecommunications network, telephone lines are typically labeled as twisted pairs and as twisted pair numbers. In the following example, trunk line 204 includes twisted pairs 1 through 600. The first branch line 208 includes twisted pairs 1 through 200, the second branch line 218 includes twisted pairs 201 to 400, and the third branch line 222 includes twisted pairs 401 to 600.
In the case of simple repairs (for example, if house 212 has a local problem with its telephone wiring), the customer at house 212 would notify the company to report the problem. The company would then dispatch a technician 232 to house 212. The technician would resolve the problem and, after returning to the company, would inform others at the company of the nature of the problem and the cost of the repair.
For larger and more complex problems, the following scenarios often occur in the Prior Art. Consider the situation where portions of trunk line 204 have been severed. For example, heavy construction equipment, such as a backhoe, has severed portions of trunk line 204 while excavating at a site. Assuming that the damage to trunk line 204 damaged twisted pairs 1 through 200, this would in turn cause the entire region A to be without service from the network.
It is likely that the company will receive many calls from customers in the region indicating a malfunction. In the example, the customer at house 212, the customer at house 214 and the customer at house 216 will inform the company of the malfunction. In response, the company dispatches a first technician 232 to the first house 212, a second technician 234 to the second house 214 and a third technician 236 to the third house 216. After all three technicians arrive, they would discover that the problem lies not within the internal wiring of the customer's house or the wire from the telephone pole to the house, but that a problem has occurred somewhere else in the network.
After the company has been informed by these technicians, it is likely that the company will dispatch a special technician either to branch line 208 to determine if the malfunction has occurred there or to trunk line 204. Since the first three technicians have realized that the problem does not lie within the houses to which they were dispatched, the three technicians return back to the company, or are assigned by the company to other tasks.
To attend to the possible branch line or trunk line problems, the company will dispatch a fourth technician 230 to trunk line 204. The technician will discover the nature of the problem, that is, that a backhoe has severed portions of trunk line 204 and has damaged twisted pairs 1 through 200. The technician will repair the damage and will return back to the company.
If the damage to trunk line 204 has been caused by another company (the owner or operator of the backhoe), the company that owns the network preferably bills the company responsible for the damage to trunk line 204, or in the alternative, the company that owns the network could also bill its insurance carrier for damage to its network. In the Prior Art system, the only task that would be billed to either the company causing the damage or the insurance company would be the time logged by the fourth technician 230. All of the time logged by the first three technicians 232, 234 and 236, would not be accounted for, and the company would lose significant revenue by failing to account for the time spent by these other technicians. In addition, the company will have dispatched four technicians when only one technician would have been sufficient to solve the problem.
In failing to quickly recognize the nature of the problem, the company has wasted valuable resources by dispatching the first three technicians, who are unnecessary to resolving the problem. Additionally, the company has also lost revenue because the company could not correlate the time spent by the first three technicians with the damage incident to trunk line 204.